Aaron Alexis and the gun control mental health dodge

posted at 10:01 am on September 21, 2013 by Jazz Shaw

The chatter over tough, new, Must Have gun control regulations in the wake of the Washington shipyard shooting has been considerably more muted (though not absent) than in the periods following other recent tragedies of a similar nature. This is understandable on a number of counts, but one area where the clamoring of the righteous has still bubbled to the surface is found in the cries for reform when it comes to the mentally ill. Leaving aside for a moment the inconvenient fact that the shooter was never treated for any mental illness by the VA – contrary to early reporting – or the fact that he had no arrest record for unstable behavior, it’s an idea still gaining in popularity. And it’s a dangerous one which should be approached with caution for several reasons.

Better and more accessible care for the truly mentally ill is a worthwhile goal, and one which should be pursued. (And Kelly Ayotte already has a plan to do so without infringing anyone’s Second Amendment rights.) But we need to stand firm against any proposed federal legislation which purports to make everyone safer by keeping guns out of the hands of (or confiscating them from!!!) the mentally ill. That last sentence is sure to set the hair of many liberals afire, but there’s a reason for this sense of caution. You see, we already know where that path leads because we’ve seen the terminus of it in the state of New York, and it’s a nightmare.

Following the Newtown tragedy, the Empire State – already steeped in a tradition of denying Second Amendment rights wherever the state government was able – quickly leapt into action and passed the NY SAFE Act. This disastrous assault on the rights of the state’s citizens led to David Lewis being confronted by police at the front door of his home and having his guns confiscated under threat of arrest. The reason for the showdown was that authorities had mistaken him for somebody else who had committed the sin of seeking medical help and receiving medication for depression at one point in the past. The courts eventually forced the government to give David his guns back, and liberals will proudly tell you that this was a non-story because the system worked and he didn’t lose his rights. But the big lie that they foster is found in the fact that David Lewis was never the story here. It was the guy they were trying to get when they came to David’s house by mistake. They had criminalized the act of being treated for depression and made it grounds to seize your guns without ever having a day in court.

But that was the goal all along, and it’s precisely what makes this latest “mental health” ploy so dangerous as anti Second Amendment enthusiasts seek to reopen the national background check discussion. Gun grabbers have found an issue where they can get almost unanimous consent across the board, including from gun owners. Nobody wants the dangerously insane to have weapons… not even the NRA. So using that bit of light coming in under the edge of the door, they’ve found a point of attack. Since we all agree that the insane shouldn’t have guns, we’ll pass a law to enforce that. And then we’ll start dumbing down the definition of “insane” to include as many people as possible. There is no longer any question that Aaron Alexis was insane in some fashion. But unfortunately for us all, through a combination of poor police work and random twists of fate, his behavior never rose to the level where he would fail a background check. In retrospect, it’s easy to say that he was nuts, what with talking to himself, being paranoid about people he met and a propensity toward fits of anger. But how many other people does that describe who will never resort to violence? If we allow the government to lower the bar on “mental illness” to that level, vast legions of Americans will all become David Lewis.

Because in the end, this was never about helping people. This was not a story of saving the public from the mentally ill or saving the insane from themselves. This is about taking away the guns, just as it has always been. This is the story of a vast group of extremely angry and frustrated liberals who are forlorn at the refusal of certain lines from the Constitution to simply disappear. And since they can’t rid the founding documents of the hated clause, their long time tactic has been to adopt the First Amendment “fire in the theater” caveat to say that all rights have limitations, and then to seek out every possible nook and cranny to find “exceptions” where gun rights can be infringed and weapons can be confiscated. The mental health issue is no exception. We already have a system in place for defining those who are too dangerously deranged to own guns, and it involves having people adjudicated as such in a court of law with the opportunity to defend themselves and challenge the finding if they wish. That is sufficient. As we’ve already seen in New York, if you let the anti-gun rights lobby define the mentally ill when it comes to background checks and gun ownership, soon enough they will define wanting to own a gun as a mental illness.

If we fall for that, then we truly will have the government we deserve for being fools.

Blowback

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I completely agree with Jazz Shaw on this. Alexis should have been prosecuted at least a couple of times for his actions (shooting blindly into the upstairs neighbor’s apartment, shooting at a parked car for no good reason). Enforcing existing law, which are plenty restrictive, is effective if actually done. You don’t need to give the lefties further excuses to entangle mental illness with gun laws.

Just the idea of letting insane liberals define insanity — with themselves forever excluded from any such definition — is…Well, insane. And you’re right, Jazz. They will eventually decide wanting a gun is insane, so nobody can have one.

Liberals will take the mental health issue to the extreme. Years ago, they tried including in the definition of domestic violence a man yelling at his partner. The man didn’t have to throw anything or even threaten her. All he had to do was raise his voice and liberal feminists declared him guilty of violence and abuse.

Liberalism is a form of mental illness, so I see no reason to let the lunatics run the asylum any more than they already do.

At the same time, the doj releases thousands of illegal aliens who are criminals and many with mental issues, because the country of origin won’t take them back and they can’t hold them past a certain date. How ’bout a little arm twistin’ on these countries so they have to take them back or changes to the law or even another unconstitutional EO to help protect law abiding citizens. The mentally ill have been left to fend for themselves for decades thanks to the socialism that has perverted our govt and way of life, families can’t help them and soup kitchens are being prevented from feeding the homeless.

In New York, it is not just those with a history of depression or other mental health treatment who lose their right to own a firearm, it is the people who live with them. Even if you have a combination lock cabinet for a firearm and keep the combination to yourself that is not sufficient. Do we now say “don’t live with someone who was ever treated for a mental illness or you lose your 2nd amendment rights”.

I agree that the definition of insane can be abused, but you must be cautious in this area. There is a problem with how we diagnose and treat the insane. There is room for improvements there. More people do need to be barred from gun ownership. However, there must be due process — notice and hearing. That does not mean the process cannot be improved and streamlined.

This was not a story of saving the public from the mentally ill or saving the insane from themselves. This is about taking away the guns, just as it has always been.

Yup.

But we must remember that emotion won’t make anybody safer or protect our rights. Beware of politicians who exploit our emotions in an attempt to pass laws that even they admit wouldn’t have prevented the violence

It’s two things. There is the Racial aspect that no one wants to even get close to and there is the mental health issues. They are both equally important in the minds of Liberals. The fact that he tried to get some help for his mental issues just makes it more important to ignore because that is what most rational people have been saying for years, access to mental health needs to be ramped up not make more new gun laws. They must ignore these events and make it like this never happened because it does not fit into any narrative they like and are willing to pursue.

Letting the libs run with this is like letting the fox into the hen house.

What we really need to see is the enforced hospitalization of people who are paranoid schizophrenics. If they get better with treatment, great. While they are having delusions, they need to be hospitalized for their safety and everybody else’s.

In the former Soviet Union, the mere fact that a full-blooded Russian would seek to immigrate from Mother Russia to another country, and a capitalist country at that, was grounds for the Soviet government to label that Russian mentally ill, and confine them to a mental institution until they could be “cured” of this delusion that life was better under capitalism. Many perfectly sane Russians were subject to all manner of psychotropic rugs, rendering them forever insane…for merely voicing that they wanted to leave the USSR.

Seriously.

Many refusniks, dissidents, and just plain Russians who wanted a better life elsewhere was enough to be stripped of jobs, perks, rights, and dignity…they were mentally ill, you know.

At what point is seeking medical help for depression, bi-polar disorder, or any other DSM-5 described mental illness grounds for “government” to rob a person of their Rights? And when will being a believer in the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights be deemed as extremism, bordering on mental illness, a fetish, an obsession, a danger to society?

It has already begun across America, and has been going on for years.

Big Brother hates those who refuse to conform.

Using the Alexis murder spree as grounds for “new” laws?

But, we got to do something!!! There ought to be a law!! If it saves the life of just one person…it’ll be worth it, right?

Heard that before…too many times.

There are times when we serve ourselves best by not “doing something” at all.

There needs to be a law that prevents the Obama’s government from banning the use of criminal background checks, even if it would diminish the hiring of blacks.http://herit.ag/K0KyZq

Chessplayer on September 21, 2013 at 10:21 AM

YES.

From
The article you linked to:

The EEOC is able to avoid this problem, however, through its use of a legal fiction: Without any evidentiary foundation, it assumes that because blacks and Hispanics are arrested and convicted at a higher rate than whites, the consideration of criminal backgrounds has a disparate impact on minorities and is therefore a violation of Title VII. In the Guidance, which runs over 30 pages, the EEOC ignores the fact that there is no reliable evidence of racial bias in the criminal justice system’s handling of violent and non-violent offenses.[5]

…And you’re right, Jazz. They will eventually decide wanting a gun is insane, so nobody can have one…

Liam on September 21, 2013 at 10:30 AM

Yup, there is precedent for this sort of reasoning as regards the death penalty. The bleeding hearts protest and block it so effectively that it becomes “unusual”, and of course they always considered it “cruel”. But they conveniently ignore the 14th amendment which explicitly requires due process before being deprived of life, just as they conveniently ignore our even more explicit gun rights.

His hatred of whites finally got the best of him…I don’t think hatred and racist attitude can qualify as a mental health problem. Heck, without hatred the Democratic party would collapse…they promote it and welcome it…Rev. Wright even preached it.

The real issue is not his alleged mental illness it was the failure to follow through and prosecute him in Seattle when he shot out the tires of someone’s car in a fit of rage. Had the district attorney followed through Alexis would have become a prohibited person. My guess is that they didn’t want to jail Alexis in liberal Seattle because he was black. When you are faced with pressure to equalize arrest and prosecution rates among the races and Asians, Hispanics and Whites don’t cooperate by committing crimes then you are face with the dilemma of which black offenders your decide to prosecute. Of course Alexis could have just gone to Wal-Mart and bought oven cleaner and a kitchen knife to take out the guard and achieve the same result as he did with the Shotgun.

And one more thing, Liberals aren’t so hot about the First Amendment either.

And then we’ll start dumbing down the definition of “insane” to include as many people as possible.

This has already happened with “se‍x offenders” being forced to register with the state, forbidden to live within a certain distance of schools/parks, or to go to them, etc. Originally, “se‍x offenders” referred to people convicted of certain heinous crimes.

But the definition was “dumbed down” to include “Romeo/Juliet” scenarios under which one or even both willing partners were just under the legal age of con‍sent (not talking about actual child mol‍estation here), and in some cases after the sentence was served, and both were of age, they married and had children, but Daddy can’t take his children to school, come to see their plays, recitals, and sporting events, or even attend a parent-teacher conference”. And that’s assuming he can even find a place to live that isn’t within the proscribed radii of places children are known to congregate.

And then there are those who don’t bother finding a restroom to recycle their beer, and a charge of public urination gets indecent exposure tacked on, and hey, now you’re a “se‍x offender”, even though there wasn’t a damned thing “se‍xual” about it.

And if you say a word about this, then you obviously favor r‍aping five-year-olds, and maybe you belong on the Registry yourself. So shut up, perv.

On the flip side, I hear no calls for control of gangbangers after the shooting of a dozen people in Chicago the other day during a drive-by. Is that because the racial aspects are too ‘sensitive’ for liberals to touch? Or is it because there was likely more than one shooter?

For a group of people to just open fire on people in a park is no less ‘insane’ than Alexis was. So why are there no calls about ‘doing something’ about street gangs from liberals?

My guess is that they didn’t want to jail Alexis in liberal Seattle because he was black. When you are faced with pressure to equalize arrest and prosecution rates among the races and Asians, Hispanics and Whites don’t cooperate by committing crimes then you are face with the dilemma of which black offenders your decide to prosecute. Of course Alexis could have just gone to Wal-Mart and bought oven cleaner and a kitchen knife to take out the guard and achieve the same result as he did with the Shotgun.

There are times when we serve ourselves best by not “doing something” at all.

coldwarrior on September 21, 2013 at 10:43 AM

I have a nice come back to that one that makes Libs heads nearly explode every time I bring it up. I say fine, I can make a law that will not take away one right or privilege from anyone in the country, and it will save at least 20,000 lives a year, some of them children. It has to be worth it, because you just said if it saves just one life it will be worth it.

Put alcohol inhibitors in every vehicle in America. Tad Da! no more drunk driving deaths! They think about that for a minute and start with the you’re taking away my right to drive intruding on my privacy, blah, blah, the Constitution, etc. Sometimes it works and they do stop and think though. It does get them to shut up about new gun laws and using that pathetic “if it saves just one life” line.

How will “mental illness” be “defined,” when the State takes total control of our health care? The IRS, already tapped as an instrumental enforcer, under CommieCare, has already targeted Conservatives.

How much more will it target armed Conservatives? Remember, under CommieCare, your good doctor will be attempting to gather information about your guns.

coldwarrior has already posted an excellent comment about how the Communists have already used “mental illness” as a means of targeting dissenters.

And then there are those who don’t bother finding a restroom to recycle their beer, and a charge of public urination gets indecent exposure tacked on, and hey, now you’re a “se‍x offender”, even though there wasn’t a damned thing “se‍xual” about it.
The Monster on September 21, 2013 at 10:50 AM

I worked with a guy that at about 3 in the morning on a back road walked into the woods well out of sight of any house or persons and took a leak. The cops saw his car and decided to check it out. He is now a listed sex offender.

There needs to be a law that prevents the Obama’s government from banning the use of criminal background checks, even if it would diminish the hiring of blacks.http://herit.ag/K0KyZq

Chessplayer on September 21, 2013 at 10:21 AM

YES.

From
The article you linked to:

The EEOC is able to avoid this problem, however, through its use of a legal fiction: Without any evidentiary foundation, it assumes that because blacks and Hispanics are arrested and convicted at a higher rate than whites, the consideration of criminal backgrounds has a disparate impact on minorities and is therefore a violation of Title VII. In the Guidance, which runs over 30 pages, the EEOC ignores the fact that there is no reliable evidence of racial bias in the criminal justice system’s handling of violent and non-violent offenses.[5]

While I realize that this is something that needs to be handled judiciously, I think there should have been arrest records for the two incidents that we have heard about in regards to the shooter. Especially the shooting out of the tires of the truck owned by construction workers, since we are being told he “didn’t remember” doing it for an hour. As for David Lewis, I’m having a hard time seeing the average government organization, which can’t find its azz with both hands, all of the sudden knowing who didn’t take their meds. And obviously, considering the mix up, I’m correct. But there is more here than meets the eye with my suspicions starting at gun ownership with a goal towards confiscation. Scary.

Odd, a huge dust storm just hit me, especially in the eyes. That is so awesome (not sure about the ball python thingy but hey….)I’m sure he’ll get the hang of it before to long. You’ve been called worse things than “Sir” right here at Hot Air. I am so excited for you and your family.

So using that bit of light coming in under the edge of the door, they’ve found a point of attack. Since we all agree that the insane shouldn’t have guns, we’ll pass a law to enforce that. And then we’ll start dumbing down the definition of “insane” to include as many people as possible.

Excellent article – Please note that it was a favorite tactic in the Soviet Union to classify dissidents as mentally ill and thus confine them.

Its is not that much of a stretch to see gun grabbers and other assorted Statists from trying to use the same tactic on us.

The problem with your view is that, he should have been arrested for using a gun in anger, fueled by his mental illness, every time t happened. But nobody wanted to see it for what it was.

He shot up people’s tires in anger!!! If you support those kind of gun owners then I can’t support your views. Irresponsible gun owners are the problem.

His mental illness is that it was ignored, excused, he was not merely depressed, he was acting out violently with a gun and that should have attracted attention long ago. He shot through a ceiling, into the apartment of a woman, complaining of the noise… but it was probably voices in his head.!!! But no one investigated it properly.

If this mentally ill guy having a gun is fine with you, then we part ways.

There is a societal unwillingness to see mental illness, like it is judging them with a sin. That needs to stop. It is not sin, it is not an embarrassment that needs covered up. Not this kind of psychosis.

Do you think this guy wanted to become a mass murderer? Of course not. And because people were too afraid to get him a correct diagnosis, and see the potential of danger/out of control use of guns.

Hoplophobes and statists never stop. They never stop. They. Never. Stop. Don’t forget. There is nothing that will ever appease them for good. Like everything bad in this world, they must be managed and controlled, like malaria or something.

Anyone with a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia especially, and many other disorders with psychotic features, should be blocked from weapons purchase immediately (with mandatory reporting).

Make what ever sign-off on the diagnosis seems prudent -review or agreement of other physicians, and of course short term and long term due process to challenge and revisit the diagnosis and necessity for restriction.

This pretty fiction that mental illness is imaginary and can only be used as pretext to send someone off to unperson gulag land, and that the delusional are not dangerous, needs to end.

I’m encouraged that people can look at this specific case and get a realistic picture of what paranoid schizophrenia is.

SUfferers are not in shuffling gibber mode all the time. They can function and be social, be “nice guys”, though with chips on their shoulders, a tendency to react and act out. THey live in constant fear and alarm, though, and those “nice guys” can destabilize at any time.

This man was undertreated. His family said he did have a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. Where it came from is anybody’s guess, but I bet it was a long, long, long time ago, because he essentially severed contact with his family ages ago.

Schizophrenia is not depression. Schizophrenia is not the baby blues. Just because the other side has decided to inflate having a bad mood because of PMS to a “mental health issue” doesn’t mean we can’t be smarter than that.

“There is no longer any question that Aaron Alexis was insane in some fashion. But unfortunately for us all, through a combination of poor police work and random twists of fate, his behavior never rose to the level where he would fail a background check”

I agree with the author’s general point that 2nd amendment restrictions based on mental health assessment should be narrowly tailored but the Navy Yard shooter is a bad example to be using to defend his position.

Alexis’ behavior prior to the shooting did in fact rise to the point that should have precluded his buying any gun but thanks to liberal policies concerning the mentally ill it didn’t happen. See the article at the following link for more information.

The Attorney General in California has his own state police force going to confiscate guns from people who have a been held for psychiatric observation for 48 or 72 hours. So, a person could be agitated after a traumatic event like an accident, and instead of being given 10mg of Valium and sent home with a friend or loved one they are held for a period of observation. After they are signed out with no further action. Then the state DOJ police show up in bullet proof vests and armed and demand all the guns in the household. They don’t have a warrant, and you don’t have to let them in, but they’re the AUTHORITIES on your doorstep…

This man was undertreated. His family said he did have a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. Where it came from is anybody’s guess, but I bet it was a long, long, long time ago, because he essentially severed contact with his family ages ago.

Agree, as usual onset of schizophrenia is early adulthood, say 18-24. Not always, though. I haven’t read anything which denied the reports of him hearing voices or experiencing microwaves directed at him through a motel wall, or that people who had allegedly been following him were the “perpetrators.” Whether or not he was diagnosed with schizophrenia is not clear, but certainly the symptoms reported above are indicative of a psychosis, and a fairly virulent one. Often with those kinds of symptoms, command auditory hallucinations go hand in hand; these commands are often suicidal or homicidal in nature. Any contact by police with him during this period should have led to detaining of him for evaluation by a mental health professional, not just an information referral to the Navy. If any of that part of the story is true.

There is a big difference between thought (schizophrenia and other psychoses) disorders or bipolar or unipolar mood episodes in which psychotic symptoms are present, and regular clinical depression or bipolar disorder that respond to appropriate medication and clinical monitoring interventions. They should not be confused or lumped together to deny 2nd Amendment Rights.

I know of no state mental illness involuntary commitment law that will allow for detention of someone for political beliefs. I evaluated people for 25 years under those laws. However, rumors or more than rumors have been passed around that the VA has considered taking steps to deny 2nd Amendment rights to veterans diagnosed with PTSD on a wholesale basis. If that is true, then a line is being crossed.